Start here or at the beginning. Keep in mind there are MANY details and not KNOWINGS about how that this thing started. Let me know your thoughts. All of these people are very well known the the DG community. Not looking for NEGS, just thoughts. How can we make things better. Meaning STL and our DG community.

We could maybe try to change the demographics of the RCF. I mean we are mainly white males, & there are so many others that just need to be shown the fun of the sport of disc golf. This is a great resource of untapped players to help the growth of disc golf. It is not a easy project, but it can be done with a greater media coverage of events, the restarting/continued junior league or tournament, possibly something could be done like a family or parent/child league or tournament.Growth is always hard and a trial and error effort, but if we all suggest a idea, there has to be some of those ideas that will be a success.Just offering up a opinion.

Last edited by emptv on Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, disc golf will always have the problem of having evolved upside-down. There was “professional” disc golf when there were 2 permanent courses. At the time it made sense…the IFA was supporting professional Frisbee players, and professional disc golf was just an extension of that. So long as Wham-O was pumping $$$ into Frisbee sports, all was good. When Kransco bought out Wham-O in ’83 and pulled the plug on the IFA, suddenly “professional” disc golf really didn’t make any sense. There were a couple hundred permanent courses, a few thousand PDGA members and NO money fund tournament payouts.

So, disc golf was at the crossroads then. The players took over the PDGA and decided to keep chugging along doing what it had always done, holding “professional” tournaments and hoping for a big money company to step in and replace the IFA money. 25 years and counting…still no money. After a few years somebody came up with the idea to let Amateurs join the PDGA, which has helped draw more players in but really is not helping reach the ultimate goal of “professional” disc golf.

Now, I’m not attacking the PDGA here, just giving my opinion. All the PDGA really does is run a tournament series. PDGA events are what we do for ourselves. They are fun events we like to play in and we hold for ourselves. As far as promoting the sport…well, they don’t. They get no media coverage, so no one outside of people who already play disc golf ever hear about them. Attracting the “professionals” who we raise money to add to the purse so they will show up does nothing to help promote the sport …we think it’s cool when Coda Hatfield or Barry Schultz show up in town to take our money, but I guarantee the folks chucking Destroyers at 170 ft holes at White Birch have no idea who Coda Hatfield or Barry Schultz are. The events draw no spectators (except for the Am’s who hang around to watch a final 9) so they don’t help in making the sport more attractive to sponsors. So long as you try to live the PDGA dream, you waste time and resources so far as truly promoting the sport goes. PDGA events are not what we do to help the sport, they are what we do for us.

Now, the PDGA as an organization has glaring flaws and lack of leadership, but I don’t think it matters because the PDGA does not grow the sport. The sport grows at the local level. It’s you and me dragging a friend to the course. It’s giving your backup putter to a noob who is trying to play with a Destroyer and a Wraith. It’s encouraging that noob to show up at a Club event and pointing out the schedule hanging at the kiosk. It’s volunteering to set up a few portables at your kid’s elementary-school field day and letting kids chuck your putters around. It’s setting up a mini course in your office with trash cans when your boss is away and telling your co-workers about the sport. It’s what WE do all the time every day to encourage more people to get out and try this great sport we all love. THAT is what is driving the growth of the sport. THAT is why more courses are going into the ground. The PDGA doesn’t have anything to do with that, it’s you and me and anybody else who is doing things to introduce more folks to the sport.

So, if we wanted to take some attention away from the PDGA events and focus it on really growing the sport, I’d suggest something like finding some folks that had some weekday time available in the summer and contact park departments about going to day camps, setting up portables and teaching the game to kids. The Club could get some 150 class putters and put together some info on where courses are to pass out. Something like that could help grow the sport. Of course, you would have to put away the one hitter and hide your beer if those kids actually DID show up on the course.

It’s a tough nut to crack. You hear people say all the time…”I belong to the PDGA to support the sport.” But it’s a waste of time. When I was at Hazelwood I had a pretty good thing going…a packed course full of casual players, trophy-only events with 60+ players, full leagues, a concession selling over 8,000 discs year netting over 20 grand for the parks department. I called the PDGA and had a conversation with the then-ED about trying to use our success to help promote the sport to other parks departments. The reply I got was “It’s not my job to promote the sport. It’s my job to run a tour.” I’m not saying stop holding PDGA events because, well, we like them. Just understand that holding PDGA events and promoting the sport are different things.

I agree a lot with bubba in the sense that we have a lot more of an impact on getting more people involved at a local level than what the pdga may. I guess I see it as a double edged sword. The only way you're gonna get people on the course is to invite people out you may work with, or friends or whomever it may be. On the flip side, I'd like to see disc golf become more mainstream...see more public knowledge of a very cool sport. That's where I see the value in paying my pdga membership and playing tournaments. The sport as a whole is only gonna get recognition with some type of organization, something or somebody to act as the face of the sport. It's interesting to see the difference in perspective too, I got started golfing when I was in college up in Iowa, and almost all of the tournaments were pdga sanctioned. The tournaments were spread further apart, but they were bigger tournaments. There also wasn't as big of a rush to put in new courses either. I love the fact that in the 4 years I've been back in Illinois there's been a handful of new courses built, and all that I've played have been awesome courses. I like how many tournaments are ran, but part of me wishes for an extra c tier or two over the summer. I understand there's a lot of work to be put into holding a sanctioned tournament, but from what I see we're definitely getting there as far as number of quality courses and people willing to do whatever they can in order to host some great tournaments. I guess I just think that if we ran some more sanctioned tournaments, we'd pull more players from surrounding areas and have a better chance to show what St Louis is all about, and all the hard work a lot of you have been putting in. Just my $.02

Dehaas/Bubba,You 2 cents is worth every word. This is the reason I started this thread. Bubba, you are totally on target also. Both or your thoughts are much appreciated. Hopefully the newbs will read and see just what a struggle it is on the DG front.

rondisc wrote:Dehaas/Bubba,You 2 cents is worth every word. This is the reason I started this thread. Bubba, you are totally on target also. Both or your thoughts are much appreciated. Hopefully the newbs will read and see just what a struggle it is on the DG front.

thanks to both of you.

Ron

thirded. Bubba got it spot on.

i've considered joining the pdga, but then thought: why? i wouldn't play in the st. louis open even if i WAS a much better player just because i think creve coeur is a travesty. i don't have the time or money to travel to other tourneys. the pdga hasn't done anything to upgrade/maintain the courses i play or intice me to join.

the only reason i'd really want to join is so i can get a number and then have that sense of validation that i'm a ' serious' golfer, but that's just a waste of money, and i really don't want to get that serious anyway

Are YOU the d-bag who swiped all four of the putters I left at White Birch?

This is simply a matter of the age old questions, is this a sport or a game?For the people who believe this is a sport, joining the PDGA is worth while. For people that play just for fun, exercise or to get away from their wives there is no point for them. People want to play to win something or play for fun. Thats fine if you just want to play for fun. However, I would hope those people can be courteous enough of the competitive people to understand why we don't want to get involved in a 8-some at 3 pm at JB. Additionally, let us play through if there are more of you than there are of us!

Well, I don't think bashing the PDGA is the point. For a certain group of golfers the PDGA is key to what they consider their disc golf experience. Also, nothing happens in a vacuum. The PDGA, by it's very existence, creates a certain motivation that drives the sport forward. Why did RCF feel the need to update the design of JB? Why did somebody want to add the OB grass to Sioux? Those things were done because those courses host PDGA events, and RCF wanted them to be the best courses to challenge Open players. If it's just us playing those courses and you are not trying to impress the out-of-town folks, where is the motivation to make those courses harder? Where is the motivation to install Unger? If you did have the motivation to install Unger, where is the motivation not to copy the design for White Birch? Hosting PDGA events drives some important aspects of the sport. You also can go anywhere and play by the same rules. If not for the PDGA, you could go to Kansas City and find out that DROT counts and go to Des Moines and find out they don't count wedgies. That doesn't happen because we have consistent rules due to the PDGA. So we can never say that the PDGA does nothing for the sport. It's just that the PDGA has blinders on to one outcome...disc golf as a "professional" sport. There are some other possible outcomes that we ignore by throwing all our support behind the PDGA, and for some of us those ignored possible outcomes might work out pretty good.

I really would not like to see anything drastic happen to the PDGA, but it would be nice if there was a counter-balance organization that really looked at what was best for the sport and not just what is best for a certain percentage of the players.